As in Hiroshima, survivors instinctively headed for the river—in this instance, the Urakami River. Thousands clustered along its banks and plunged into its water, hoping to soothe their wounds or take a drink. Soon the river was a great floating mortuary, and the ebb tide carried the mass of bodies down to the harbor and out to sea. About an hour after the blast came the same hideous rain that had fallen on Hiroshima—strangely large globules of sticky black paste, hard and heavy enough to cause physical pain as it fell on people caught out in the open.
